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So right now I’m stumbling through a piece on sexual harassment on the internet…..

At first I was very stubborn to this idea that sexual harassment online could be potentially harmful then I wondered….seriously I doubted the validity of any information that could come from this article that I’m reading for my Sociology of Gender class (I pretty much never question my professor or her authority; I mean she has a PHD and has read 100s of books on gender, WHO AM I TO QUESTION THAT?!?!)

AND then I wondered could perhaps my recent incident online be connected to SH?!

So I found an article that a “progressive left wing feminist” person on my friend list had liked on FB.

Essentially this “feminist” had liked a criticism of an article on rape and blurred lines, a particularly angry woman saying that the raped demographic in this article were not actually raped and could not nor should they cry wolf…obviously they hadn’t even been raped.

Why would a self-proclaimed feminist woman from the 21st century buy into this crap one might ask?

Because the article itself was written by a woman (and with other women in mind from similar situations) that had technically not taken away consent but visibly did not want sex. No these weren’t one stand situations but rather with a well-established partner….

Perhaps I’m doing a poor example of describing this reaction/ criticism of the women and the actual article itself.

From my experience, in my first serious relationship that was a “straight” relationship because I was in fact with a hetero, cis male, this happened to me quite often.

I was not suffering from mere regret of having bad sex (as the critical woman stated) but rather I had an established friendship with my then boyfriend which then turned into a real relationship of which he knew me very well.

There were lets say…a dozen or more times that during sex my ex boyfriend noticed I was visibly uncomfortable and did not seem to want sex because of my facial expressions, body language, and lack of any positive words, sounds, etc

Sometimes he would even ask if we should continue….usually he didn’t care what my response was or if i even had one. good, bad, etc grossly enough I have heard the argument, “well I’m almost done so…..”

And it made me so mad that these feminist women of today were arguing that wasn’t a gray area, that couldn’t even be considered rape…..

I hadn’t given my continuous consent, sometimes I didn’t even know what I had wanted, nor did I have the time or space to decide my consent seemed to be decided for me.

Maybe this doesn’t seem like “real rape” to some of you as well, I can’t change that for you.

All I can give is my opinion, personal experiences and let it be known via some media that I have had sexual experiences that existed in a weird gray area, and at some points bled its way into a raped experience.

All I can say is that in the past, I was disempowered and my partner knew me well and would even realize when he was overstepping some boundary he shouldn’t have been….

Because yes I believe it’s completely possible for a partner to know you well enough to know you do not want sex and they shouldn’t push it.

End of story I actually reported this to FB to be reviewed because there was a woman saying that these women were lying about being raped and they were just dissatisfied with their sex lives and they shutup and stop complaining because it’s nothing like being raped. And FB did nothing….they supposedly reviewed my request and said well its not really hateful or sexist or anything…..have a good day! I even wrote them back saying they should not be tolerating sexism, discrimination, and making rape into a punchline

I never report to FB either. But I would do it again.

Is not rape about consent and power folks? Is not rape that can happen to anyone in any context? IF A SPOUSE can be raped, than how is this too not an example of rape?